I Have A Problem With A Realtek ethernet connection

[kevinbenko]

I have had a problem for the past week, and I cannot figure it out.

I had installed a new motherboard for my computer, and had attempted to install Debian (Stable) again. I had inserted the requested firmware on a flash drive in /lib/firmware and the installer still cannot configuration DHCP. I said I would fix it after it was installed, but I can not do it. At all

Actually, I cannot get networking at all on Ubuntu and Mint either.

I did a small (spit) Fedora install to use the Internet, but it seems to me that Fedora has absolutely no problem with my connecting to the internet. Thus, it seems to me that the problem, somehow, is inherently, related to Debian-based installations, for me.

Can you give me ANY advice?

Can you tell me how to use Debian on the Internet?

Previously, when I didn't even have the requested firmware update, I was still able to use the internet. So what is going on. Is it my new motherboard, or what?

PS: The motherboard is a Gigabyte motherboard, and Gigabyte's advice is "use windows".

NO! I will not use windows. Neither will use anything other than Debian.

Please help!

[kevinbenko]

PS: I have done web-searches for Realtek, Gigabyee, DHCP, "how to configure DHCP", "how to configure a Linux network:, and many other web-searches over the past week. I am at my witt's end with this problem.

[sunrat]

We need more information about your hardware and the version of Debian. Recent hardware may need a more recent kernel and firmware than is in Jessie. These are easily installed from jessie-backports repo.
A probable solution is to install latest kernel from backports (currently linux-image-4.6.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 ) and firmware-realtek also from backports. These can be downloaded on another computer and installed from a usb stick using gdebi or dpkg.

Post exactly which cpu and ethernet chip you have. cpu can be found using lscpu and ethernet can be found with lspci .

[kevinbenko]

OK, thank you on your suggestion with regards to backports.

But, anyway, my new motherboard is a Gigabyte ATX AM#+ AMD 970-GA970A-D3P motherboard, version FD
It has a Realtek ethernet connection that needs a "rtl_nic/rtl8168g-2.fw" firmware "blob"
I have tried to install Jessie, and Stretch, both have failed the auto-configuration of DHCP, and I installed the 3 DVD Jessie install and I figured I could configure the network by myself.

I was dead wrong about that, given the 8 pages of notes over the past week of failures.

Like I said, it works in a Fedora installation I had installed. But I don't like Fedora, I like Debian.

######################

Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 8
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-7
Thread(s) per core: 2
Core(s) per socket: 4
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD
CPU family: 21
Model: 2
Model name: AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor
Stepping: 0
CPU MHz: 2100.000
CPU max MHz: 4000.0000
CPU min MHz: 1400.0000
BogoMIPS: 8036.58
Virtualization: AMD-V
L1d cache: 16K
L1i cache: 64K
L2 cache: 2048K
L3 cache: 8192K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-7
Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc extd_apicid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes xsave avx f16c lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs xop skinit wdt lwp fma4 tce nodeid_msr tbm topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb cpb hw_pstate vmmcall bmi1 arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold

############################


[root@67-60-14-59 kbenko]# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890 PCI to PCI bridge (external gfx0 port B) (rev 02)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port B)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port D)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RD890 PCI to PCI bridge (PCI express gpp port H)
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 40)
00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 42)
00:14.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 IDE Controller (rev 40)
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller (rev 40)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge (rev 40)
00:14.5 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI2 Controller
00:16.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:16.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h Processor Function 5
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 [GeForce GTX 650] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 HDMI Audio Controller (rev a1)
02:00.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VL805 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)

################################

Additionally, I have 16 GB of ram.

#################################

I hope that helps.

Thank you for your advice, sunrat.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

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03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)

Hmmm, that description matches the output for this old laptop and the wifi works on that under wheezy:
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebia ... 130/wheezy

Perhaps the [Vendor ID:Product ID] numbers would be more useful:

Code: Select all

lspci -nn | grep Ethernet

Also, does the wifi work if you load up a live version of one of the unofficial ISO images that already contain the non-free firmware?

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unoff ... e+nonfree/

[v&n]

PS: The motherboard is a Gigabyte motherboard

The modern Gigabyte motherboards usually have a feature called "IOMMU" in their BIOS/UEFI setup. See if yours has it too and try toggling its state from 'off' to 'on' (or the other way round). If this doesn't help, revert its state back to its default, and try the next suggestion below -

The card you have is similar to one of the problematic cards of Realtek (problematic with the native Linux driver r8169). So I think we can try the same solution here too. If it doesn't work, it is easy to revert back.

Download r8168-dkms package from here : https://packages.debian.org/sid/kernel/r8168-dkms

Install it with -

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# dpkg -i <package-name>

Of course replace the "<package-name>" above with whatever the name of your downloaded package is. Currently it is "r8168-dkms_8.042.00-2_all.deb"

Restart networking, or just reboot your computer. If the problem persists, we can check a few more things to ensure everything else is okay. If we need to revert back to the default driver, simply purge the above package with dpkg -

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# dpkg -P <package-name>

I may be jumping the gun here, skipping a few routine checks, but this series of NIC is one of those few things that make me do that. Head_on_a_Stick may be on the right track, and I would recommend to try what he suggested first, post the result, and wait for his advice before following mine.

[sunrat]

It has a Realtek ethernet connection that needs a "rtl_nic/rtl8168g-2.fw" firmware "blob"

Did you actually download and install firmware-realtek as suggested? That firmware is listed as included in both the jessie and jessie-backports versions. Download is here - https://packages.debian.org/jessie-back ... k/download

If it still doesn't work, try the suggestion to download and install r8168-dkms

It would be helpful to post the result of the lspci command Head_On_A_Stick posted as well, and his suggestion to try booting the live image with non-free firmware may also be revealing.

[kevinbenko]

OK.... Sorry, I was busy today... had to make some money and stuff....

I have, as someone suggested at another forum, replaced my own cable modem with a cable modem from my ISP. The cable modem is fine, thus the problem has something to do with Debian, Debian-based systems, Gentoo, and Slackware, but NOT Fedora (spit) for some reason. I have tried about 8 install disks for Debian from Wheezy to Stretch, including the non-free versions. I have downloaded the appropriate firmware "blobs" from Debian, except the backport's "blob" which I have *just* downloaded. I will test this in about an hour or so.

I WILL toggle those setting on my bios/uefi screen and see what happens.

PS: my old motherboard was also a Gigabyte motherboard with the same realtek ethernet "driver". The old one had always worked, even without that firmware "blob" the the new motherboard... well... that is my problem, and I cannot download the "old" motherboard driver from Gigabyte, and BTW, the driver is a dreaded .EXE file... (damn).

Oh yeah.. have downloaded that r8168-dkms package and I will install it if everything else fails.

Busy busy busy...

Have a good night, and thank you for your suggestions. Even if they do not work for me, you seem to be knowledgeable and wise people, thank you.

[kevinbenko]

CRAP.... Bad news.

I plugged in my cable modem from my ISP, the first browsing I did, I got a message from the ISP about rules and stuff. The ISP's cable modem was working with Fedora, but not, as usual, on Debian. I did some attempted installs, yes, using my information for a static connection. So, everything was fine using the ISP's modem, so I plugged in my own modem again, the everything went sideways. No connection at all, not even Fedora. So I plugged in ISP's modem in, and I didn't get a connection AT ALL, not even with Fedora.

I called the (so called) "help desk" (that is a JOKE!), he asked me if I had a Windows system or a Mac system (OK, I blew up). The second guy I talked to told me that their ISP doesn't support Linux, and he had me do some Windows type stuff (power cycling and things like that).

So, I have no internet connectivity AT ALL, and I think it is because my ISP and my swapping modems around caused some bad configurations with my Fedora connectivity.

SO... I am reduced to communicating via the library, and copying things via a flash drive.

I am going to have to ask someone in my city who is knowledgeable about Linux to give me connectivity, and I am willing to pay if I get a connection.

Until then, I need your further assistance in trying to figure this problem out.

################################

I did a few attempts at installs, all had failed in that I had no connectivity.

And I did do a static IP connection got a "network not available", or something like that.

I am sorry if I am a bit... "cranky" right now. I have been dealing with, or thing about, this problem since last Friday, and I am a bit ragged. Please forgive me for anything I say that may offend you, it is nit my intention to be rude.

I will not be at the library Sunday, I need a break from my current problem.

[kevinbenko]

OK.

I think I have troubleshot (??? troubleshooted ???) my problem.

The ethernet card and Debian do not understand each other.

Solution one (bad one): Wait until Debian produces a newer *.fw package
Solution two (good one): buy a Linux-friendly, or at least a Debian-friendly, ethernet card.

I will be checking on the linuxquestions.org HCL list and see what is available.

I will tell you how it goes..... If it goes OK, I will call it [SOLVED]. If not, we will continue, I hope.

PS: D*mn Realtek!!!!!

[kevinbenko]

OK, I got the replacement Network Interface Card this afternoon, popped it in, and I now have an internet connection.

YEAH

Either the previous NIC was too new for there to be a "driver" under Linux, or it was in the process of being borked and the only reason that Fedora was able to connect is the fact that Fedora is evil/not nice/really stubborn/something else

So, that you all for your help in my problems, and have a good day.